Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Due to the graphic nature of this case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of sexual abuse of a minor, child abuse, assault, and domestic violence. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. To get help on domestic violence and sexual violence, visit spotify.com slash resources.
We all have fantasies. We dream of better lives, better partners, better versions of ourselves. But sometimes those desires can turn into obsessions. When Sheila Labar was just a little girl, she dreamed of a wealthy man who'd whisk her away and give her the perfect life.
Instead, she got into one toxic relationship after another, and her fantasies slowly twisted into delusions. Eventually, she believed there were no good men out there. And that belief came with one resolute goal. It was her job to keep them in check.
I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. You can find us here every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast, and we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Before we get into this story, amongst the many sources we used, we found Wicked Intentions by Kevin Flynn to be extremely helpful to our research. Stay with us.
Okay, so true story, I was scared to try tampons because I didn't know if they'd be able to protect like pads. Took me a few tries, but once inserted properly, tampons shouldn't hurt. If you feel it, it's not in far enough. Believe me, it changed my life. Like pads, tampons offer up to 100% leak-free protection, whether you're on the go or chilling at home. Now I do and wear whatever I want on my period, thanks to the freedom and flexibility I get with adding Tampax to my routine. Learn more at Tampax.com.
Hey, y'all. Marci Martin here with a little Tampax story. One time I went on vacation in the Bahamas with some friends, and of course I got my period.
I didn't want anything to stop me from living my best life on my trip. So I was like, why not be brave and try Tampax? Before that, I really just thought tampons were for adults, and I definitely thought they'd be uncomfortable. Guess what, y'all? They really aren't. It might take a few tries, but once it's in right, you shouldn't feel it, which is great. For a better way to period, just add Tampax.
This episode is brought to you by Oli. Back to school means food changes, early breakfasts, school lunches, after school snacks, and let's not even talk about dinner. Oli's here to help you cover all the wellness spaces from daily multivitamins to belly balancing probiotics. Oli's got your fam covered. Buy three and get one free with code bundle24 at O-L-L-Y dot com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
In 1958, the town of Fort Payne, Alabama celebrated the Fourth of July. But for one mother, it was an especially great day. As fireworks exploded overhead, Ruby Bailey gave birth to her sixth child, Sheila. Ruby couldn't get enough of her daughter and doted on her. The same couldn't be said for Sheila's father, Manuel.
Sheila's sister Lynn later alleged Manuel sexually abused Sheila when she was a baby, and according to Lynn, sadly, he wasn't the only one. At some point, he started bringing his friends over and letting them abuse her. Sheila was so young that it had to be hard for her to comprehend what was happening. But as we've discussed on this show, childhood trauma has a way of affecting us throughout our entire lives.
Sheila realized at a young age that she couldn't trust anyone to protect her. Perhaps as a way to cope with the trauma, she started escaping into the world of fantasy. She dreamed about becoming a writer, a fashion model, or a singer. It didn't really matter which path she took, so long as she was somewhere else and famous. Unfortunately, she spent so much time daydreaming that she started to lose her grip on reality.
According to researcher Eli Sommer, some children who experience childhood trauma may create intricate inner worlds. That's because fantasizing is a coping mechanism to escape from real life and engage in a world free of abuse, anxiety, or stress. But when a person's fantasy world becomes so pervasive that it borders on addiction, it crosses over into what psychologists call maladaptive daydreaming—
It's all they can think about, to the point that other parts of their life fall to the wayside. Those who live with maladaptive daydreaming often experience low self-worth. It also impairs their ability to function socially because they'd rather live in their fantasy world than engage with people in their reality.
This was the case for Sheila. She was so swept up in her daydreams, she didn't have many friends in school, and she certainly didn't hang out with her family. It was easier to spend her afternoons posing in the backyard, pretending to be a model. But as time went on and she got a little older, her dreams of a successful career were replaced by something more tangible. She longed for a rich husband who would whisk her away for a better life.
Someone who was better than her father, who would love and adore her. And the more she thought about that fantasy, the more obsessed she became with making it her reality. So after graduating high school in 1976, 18-year-old Sheila started trying to find the man of her dreams.
But life was hard. She could hardly hold onto a good job, let alone find a partner. And after years of near-constant struggle, she felt hopeless. Then, in December of 1981, she met John Baxter. John was recently divorced and had a young daughter. He was a utility lineman with a flashy sports car, and it seems that was good enough for Sheila.
On New Year's Eve, only a few weeks after meeting, they tied the knot. There was just one little problem. John had a young daughter we'll call Susie, and Sheila was less than thrilled about being a stepmom.
While John spent his days at work, Sheila locked Susie in a small bedroom all day long. If she cried or complained, Sheila broke her toys and beat her. And she warned the little girl that if she breathed a word to her dad, she'd kill her. As you can imagine, Susie was terrified. She didn't tell her dad anything. But after a few weeks, she did open up to her mom, Nancy.
And Nancy went straight to John. Luckily for Susie, John told Sheila to get out of his home immediately. She couldn't believe it. It had only been six weeks since they'd gotten married and he already wanted out. Furious, Sheila stormed through the house and gathered her belongings. On her way out, she saw John's black sports car sitting in the driveway. She threw her stuff in, got behind the driver's seat and sped off.
John made attempts to get the car back, but Sheila wasn't going to give it up without a fight. She had a specific target in mind for her rage and aggression. She blamed Nancy for the demise of her marriage, and the next time they crossed paths, she was determined to exact her revenge. So when she saw Nancy filling up at the local gas station, Sheila drove into the lot to confront her.
She threw John's car in park, grabbed a hammer from the back seat and made a beeline for her. When Nancy saw Sheila approaching, she reached into her own car and she pulled out a machete. That didn't deter Sheila. The two women circled each other while customers watched on in shock. But then they heard sirens in the distance. Someone had called the cops. Sheila scrambled back to her car and drove off.
But the fight was far from over. A few days after that, Sheila followed Nancy to a local burger joint and knocked the food right out of her hands. Then Sheila tried to choke her. But here's the thing. Nancy was way stronger than Sheila expected. She grabbed hold of Sheila's hair, pulled her across the parking lot, then smashed her head into the steel bumper of a car until she passed out.
Shortly after, a bystander intervened and told Nancy to leave. Eventually, Sheila and Nancy's feud fizzled out. Some part of Sheila accepted that she'd lost John forever. Her marriage was over. It was time to cut her losses and focus on a more important matter, like finding another man.
By spring 1982, Sheila Baxter was divorced and ready to find a man who would fulfill all of her greatest fantasies. Fortunately for Sheila, he came to her. She'd recently gotten a job waitressing at a local restaurant. One night, while closing up, the owner's son, Ronnie Jennings, started flirting with her and offered her a ride home.
Ronnie wasn't exactly the filthy rich man of her dreams, but he was tall and attractive, so she said yes and climbed into his car. On the drive, they got to talking and hit it off right away. Within a few months, Ronnie and Sheila eloped. And a year after that, they picked up and moved about 50 miles north to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sheila started working the front desk at a hotel, and Ronnie got a job as a cook.
Sheila hoped the fresh start meant a new lease on life. But at some point, Sheila grew bored with the mundane, day-to-day of her life. She started slacking off on the job. She left the desk unattended for extended periods of time and flirted with the male guests. Even worse, she and Ronnie started to have marital problems, including domestic abuse.
According to Sheila, Ronnie often took his anger out on her physically. But Ronnie remembered things differently. To him, Sheila was the real aggressor. He told the Boston Herald that when he slept next to her at night, he feared Sheila would stab him with scissors. She experienced intense mood swings. Sometimes she'd be violent. Other times, she'd leave the house altogether.
It's impossible to know the truth inside their marriage, but either way, the situation had become toxic, and Sheila wanted out. One night in early 1986, Sheila went to confront Ronnie while he was at work. She accused him of cheating and announced that she wanted a divorce.
Ronnie was nonchalant. He wanted out too. But then Sheila took a high dose of one of her medications, jumped in Ronnie's car and sped away. She got only a few miles down the road before she started getting drowsy, and that's when she passed out at the wheel.
Police found her car crashed off the side of the road. Paramedics raced her to the ICU. After that, Sheila remained in a coma for eight days. When she finally woke up, she expected Ronnie to be at her side. Instead, he had her committed to a psych ward. She was there for 30 days, which she called the worst experience of her life. She hated the other patients and the orderlies.
Either way, she blamed Ronnie for it all. He was the one who'd had her committed, and there was no coming back from that. So when she got out, she ended their marriage.
This experience changed Sheila's marriage status, but also her perspective. She told anyone who would listen that the car crash had actually killed her and she'd gone to heaven. There, she spoke to God, who told her that he was going to send her back to Earth as his avenging angel. Her mission? Rid the world of pedophiles.
Psychologist Dr. Albert Druktinas met Sheila years later, and while he never gave her an official diagnosis, he found she may have had several personality disorders that made her extremely paranoid. They were severe enough to cause her to hear voices, see visions, and have delusional thoughts.
In Sheila's mind, her mission from God was very real. And soon the idea consumed her. She had to weed out all the bad men in the world. The next year of Sheila's life was remarkably uneventful. But by February of 1987, she was ready to get back in the dating game and find Mr. Right. And this time, she was a bit more pragmatic about it.
One day, Sheila picked up a newspaper and flipped through the personal ads. She browsed the listings until one stood out to her. Sixty-year-old Dr. Wilfred Labarre, who went by Bill, was a wealthy chiropractor who owned a remote horse farm. Bill had lost his wife three years prior, so he was lonely and looking for a new companion.
To Sheila, he sounded perfect. She wrote him a letter in which she boasted about her great sense of humor and lust for life. She also included her phone number and a topless picture of herself, hoping to stand out from any other hopefuls. Sure enough, Bill called her as soon as he got her letter, and the two chatted from afar. He lived in Epping, New Hampshire, and he made arrangements for her to fly out and meet him.
When Sheila arrived at the airport, she and Bill hugged and kissed as if they'd been dating for ages. Then he drove her back to his house.
And once she got to Epping, well, Sheila never left. She adored Bill's farm. The 115-acre property felt like freedom to her. So much so that she often ran naked through the tall grass, letting the sun hit her skin. It didn't take long for word to spread around town about Bill's wild new girlfriend.
Sheila didn't care, though. She loved all the attention. She fanned the flames even more, strutting around town in tight-fitting clothes and referring to herself as Sheila LaBar. To be clear, the couple hadn't married, but she wanted everyone to know, Bill is mine.
Meanwhile, Bill was thrilled to have a beautiful young woman on his arm, so he didn't seem to mind her ostentatious behavior. In fact, he did everything he could to make her happy. Despite having the rich man of her dreams, Sheila still wanted fame. So Bill took her on trips to Nashville, where she'd rub elbows with country music stars. He encouraged her to write poetry and submit jokes to magazines.
But try as she might, Sheila couldn't make it as a working artist. She needed something else to do. Bill owned several properties on the coast of New Hampshire. The buildings needed a landlord to maintain the facilities and collect rent from tenants. Since she had some experience in the hotel industry, Sheila convinced Bill that she could do that job.
For the most part, Sheila proved her worth. She dove right in, maintaining several of the buildings and collecting rents. When tenants didn't pay up, she had no problem evicting them. Once she had Bill's properties running smoothly, she turned her attention to his medical practice. Bill owned the practice alongside his cousin, Dr. Ed Caron.
Many of the patients who came into the Labar Straight Chiropractic Clinic had experienced economic hardships. To Bill and Ed, the most important thing was getting their patients the help they needed. Money could come later, so for years they allowed patients to defer payments or even pay in fresh produce and horse tack.
For Sheila, this was unacceptable. As the self-appointed office manager, she dug into the books and discovered tens of thousands of dollars in outstanding bills. When she confronted the patients, they said they paid a front desk clerk in cash.
Sheila didn't buy that for a second. She told them that if they were telling the truth, she had to fire the employee in question. So she needed them to sign a notarized document testifying against the worker.
Presumably, these patients didn't want to face a perjury charge or be responsible for someone losing their job, so they buckled and coughed up the money. After that, Sheila saw only one more problem to handle. Bill's business partner, Dr. Ed Caron, had lived in the apartment above the clinic for years, basically rent-free. Now, Sheila told him it would cost him $700 a month.
Incensed, Ed appealed directly to Bill. But Bill's hands were tied. When it came to his girlfriend, he was powerless. He took her side as he always did, and it drove a wedge between the old business partners. And that meant Sheila had an even greater hold over Bill.
Bill's daughter, Kelly, worked part-time at her father's clinic. So she bore witness to Sheila sweeping through like a tornado, alienating patients who'd been coming for many years. Kelly also saw the toll Sheila was taking on her father. Since Sheila came to town, Bill was often fatigued and stressed. He developed hypertension. He needed to take more breaks when tending to patients, and his mood was frequently morose.
Sheila showered Bill with affection, but Kelly could see right through the act. Her father's new girlfriend was destroying the medical practice he'd spent decades building and shattered the relationship between him and his cousin. She thought it was only a matter of time before Sheila came after Bill's money.
After Bill's wife died, his attorney modified his will. When Bill died, the medical practice and the rest of his business assets would go to his cousin Ed. The rest of his wealth and the farm would be divvied up between his children. But just one year after Sheila arrived in Epping, Bill filed a new will with the court.
Upon his death, Ed would immediately vacate the apartment above the clinic. And not only was Sheila Labar named the executor of his estate, everything he owned would go to her.
But she didn't stop there. She wanted complete control over Bill, dead or alive. In July of 1990, Sheila convinced her boyfriend to sign over his power of attorney to her. By the time the final will was filed, Ed's name had been taken out completely and replaced with who else but Sheila LaBar.
And the real stinger? Bill added a clause that said his children may not contest the will upon his death. Sheila was getting everything. The farm, the clinic, the money. No questions asked.
With the documents in place, Sheila not only called the shots in their relationship, she had full access to his money. And it seems all that power shifted the dynamics of their relationship even further. Because pretty soon, she stopped looking at Bill as a lover and started looking at him as an obstacle.
Bill was okay, but she wanted to be with someone who was just as young and as attractive as she was. Someone who truly checked all the boxes. She was ready to start looking for her new man. Sheila flirted with men all around town, even patients at Bill's chiropractic clinic. If any good-looking guy was at all interesting, she brought him back to the house on Bill's farm.
Kelly was disgusted with Sheila's behavior, but Bill didn't seem to mind. Sheila even showed him pictures of the men she'd had flings with. As far as we can tell, he turned a blind eye to the constant stream of men coming and going on his farm. The same went for his medical practice.
In 1995, 29-year-old Wayne Ennis walked into the LeBar Strait Chiropractic Clinic. He'd emigrated from Jamaica to New Hampshire to find farm work, but an accident the year prior was hindering his ability to pick blueberries and apples. When Sheila saw Wayne, she was in love all over again. By August, she told Bill that she was going to marry him.
The two tied the knot that same month, but that didn't mean she cut ties with Bill. In fact, she kept working in his clinic and hired Wayne as a handyman. She and her new husband even lived on his farm. And she kept using Bill's last name.
Even with this seemingly ideal setup, Sheila still wanted more. Sure, she controlled Bill's purse strings, but if he was gone altogether, well, then everything would actually be hers. So one night, she took her husband on a drive and told Wayne she wanted him to get rid of Bill for her.
But Wayne wouldn't hear of it. The doctor had never been anything but kind to him, so he tried to find a way to say no without upsetting her.
Of course, you can probably imagine how that went. When he refused to do the deed, Sheila got really angry. She stopped the car and forced him to get out in the middle of nowhere. Then she drove off without him. He eventually found his way back home, but the trajectory of their marriage had shifted. Mostly because Sheila didn't just want a husband who was good to her. She wanted a man who'd also kill for her.
Still hoping she could get Wayne to kill Bill, Sheila decided that she had to unleash his violent side. One night in 1996, she tried to get Wayne to hit her. He wouldn't take the bait, so Sheila escalated the situation. She slapped her own face over and over until she finally split her lip. Then she called the police and told them her husband had just assaulted her.
Ultimately, the charges fizzled out, but the damage was done. Wayne had had enough of Sheila's antics. She'd fired guns at him, burned his clothes, and threatened to have him deported. Wayne confided in Bill, who he'd come to see as a father figure. Bill's advice? Get out before Sheila kills you. In December, Wayne filed for divorce and never looked back.
But for Sheila, that was hardly a problem. Once again, the farm welcomed a rotation of young men. Until finally, in the winter of 1996, Sheila crossed paths with a 20-something named James Brackett.
People who knew James said he was a sweet man, if a little deferential. For Sheila, that was perfect. She liked a man she could control. And for a time, James was head over heels in love with her. He moved in with her and Bill on the farm and even celebrated the holidays with them.
But like many of Sheila's relationships, things took a violent turn. James would later testify he sometimes feared Sheila would kill him, and for good reason. Over the course of their six-year relationship, James said Sheila shot at him with a pistol, chased him with a knife, and threatened him with an axe. And it all came to a head on September 26, 1998.
In the early morning hours, the two got into a screaming match. As the argument escalated, James pulled out a pocket knife to scare her off.
That didn't go over well with Sheila. She grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed him in the head. It was so bad that James had to go to the hospital for stitches, and police officers came by to ask questions. Sheila claimed that she'd acted in self-defense. James, she said, was the violent one. No one believed her. She was arrested for domestic abuse and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.
However, the examiner declared she wasn't a danger to herself or others, and she was released on bail. After that, she went straight to James to make amends. She apologized profusely and convinced him to stop cooperating with the investigation. And without James to testify against her, the authorities had to drop the charges.
Despite the close call with the law, Sheila and James continued their relationship for the next two years, and then Sheila got what she thought she'd always wanted. In December 2000, Bill LaBar collapsed on the kitchen floor and died from a heart attack.
Because of the will adjustment, Sheila owned the farm, the clinic, and Bill's real estate holdings. It was everything she ever wanted. She should have felt great. But she didn't. She felt an immense sense of loss. Despite treating him poorly for the better part of a decade, Bill had always been the constant in her life. He offered a sense of love and companionship.
Not to mention structure. She'd worked in Bill's medical office for years. But now she'd lost her job, too. And without a purpose to her days, she started to feel lost. To cope, Sheila started smoking weed and taking tranquilizers. When that wasn't enough, she sought companionship.
James didn't cut it for her anymore, so she subscribed to phone sex chat lines and spoke with faceless men all day and night about their fantasies. She pushed the limits of their conversations, often asking them about their most taboo desires. But all that talk unleashed something deeper and darker in Sheila. She started to believe that the majority of men were pedophiles,
Dr. Roger Gray, a psychiatrist who later met with Sheila, suspects that her childhood trauma may have caused these delusions. Because according to Sheila's older sister, her own father had sexually abused her. She internalized that and began to believe that all men had the same tendencies.
Soon, these thoughts became an obsession. She believed she could tell which men were sexual predators, even when they weren't. Sheila remembered what God told her during her coma all those years ago. She was an avenging angel, and it was time to complete her mission.
At this point, James was still on the farm, but he did nothing to ease Sheila's fraying mind. His presence might have even made it worse. She'd always been impulsive and irrational, but now her violence was escalating. By late 2003, James was ready to call it quits. He was so over it that he left the farm in the middle of a blizzard and made his way to a shelter in Portsmouth, about 25 miles away.
Sheila tracked him down and found him sharing a room with another unhoused man, 36-year-old Michael Deloge. Sheila insisted that James return with her to the farm and invited Michael to join them for dinner. She gave their guest a warm meal, put on a movie, and even let him stay the night. The next morning, she drove Michael back to the shelter but kept James on the farm.
For a period of time, things seemed to have improved between the couple, but it was only temporary. One night in 2004, they got into a massive fight. As Sheila slapped and punched him, James grabbed hold of her throat and tried to choke her. Eventually, though, he released his grip and pushed her away from him.
Sheila regained her balance and ran to another room for her gun. By the time she came back, James was already outside, running away from the property. Watching him flee, Sheila stood at the entrance and cocked the gun. The bullet barely missed James' head. She took aim at his shrinking figure in the distance and fired again. Fortunately, she missed once more.
After that, she sighed and went back in. It wasn't worth the trouble to go out in the middle of the night. She knew where he was headed. It was almost routine by this point. She'd go to the shelter in the morning, and they'd pretend like she hadn't just tried to kill him. However, when Sheila showed up this time, James was already gone.
And that was the end of their story. But Sheila was hardly broken up about it. Sure, she'd wanted to bring him back to the farm, but honestly, any man would do. Any man like Michael Deloge. He was James' roommate from the shelter, and he'd spent the night at their home a few months earlier. He was also young and handsome, so Sheila brought him back to the farm.
Michael had no idea that he'd just signed his own death sentence.
Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We're here with a new episode every Monday. Be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. And we'd love to hear from you. So if you're listening on the Spotify app, swipe up and give us your thoughts. Amongst the many sources we used, we found Wicked Intentions by Kevin Flynn to be extremely helpful to our research.
Stay safe out there.
Our head of programming is Julian Boirot. Our head of production is Nick Johnson. And Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson.